The Army-Navy rivalry began in 1890 when Cadet Dennis Michie accepted a challenge from the Naval Academy and the two teams faced off on the Plain at West Point. Navy won that game 24-0 in front of a crowd of five hundred.
By 1893, the crowds had swelled to eight thousand, and stores and offices were closed in Annapolis so that people could attend the game.
But football then was a brutal game with few rules and many injuries. And the fans were just as violent! After Navy’s victory in 1893, a rear admiral and a brigadier general got into a dispute about the game that nearly led to a duel. President Grover Cleveland stepped in and put a halt to the rivalry to try to defuse the situation.
But in 1897, Theodore Roosevelt, then assistant secretary of the navy, wrote an impassioned plea to have the game reinstated.
The rivalry picked up again in 1899 on neutral ground-at Franklin Field, in Philadelphia, where Army beat Navy 17-5 in front of a crowd of twenty-seven thousand.
In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States, and he became the first president to attend the Army-Navy game-and he began the tradition of switching sides of the field at halftime.
Football was still a brutal sport, and there was talk of banning intercollegiate football altogether-especially after the 1905 season, in which there were nineteen fatalities nationwide. But President Roosevelt worked to enact new safety rules and require equipment to reduce casualties, keeping the game alive.
Here’s How the Rivalry Stands After the 2009 Game
The Army-Navy game has been played 110 times.
Navy leads the series with 54 wins. Army has 49 wins. And 7 games have ended in a tie.
The biggest margin of victory came in 1973 when Navy shut out Army 51-0.
Navy is dominating the series right now-it has won the past eight games.
National Championships
The Cadets of Army and the Midshipmen of Navy have not contended for the national title in recent years. Both schools’ exacting academic requirements and the players’ military commitment following graduation mean that the teams are not made up of many NFL hopefuls. But both teams have had their powerhouse moments.
Army was national champion in 1914, 1944, and 1945-ending each of those years undefeated.
Navy holds a share of the 1926 national championship title-one of three undefeated teams that year.
Each of these championship teams was a standout.
In 1914, Army’s victory over Navy capped its first undefeated season. On the team that year as a student assistant was future president Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower was a running back and linebacker in 1912, but a knee injury following a tackle forced him off the field and onto the sidelines.
In 1926, the game was played in Chicago for the first-and only-time. Soldier Field was being dedicated as a monument to the servicemen who fought in World War I, and there seemed no more fitting way to mark this than with the Army-Navy game. Navy came into the game undefeated and Army had lost just once that year, to Notre Dame. The teams battled to a 21-21 tie before a crowd of over a hundred thousand.
The 1944 game was played during wartime, and the Army team traveled to Municipal Stadium in Baltimore by steamer ship-under escort from Navy warships guarding against submarine attacks. Army went into this game ranked number one in the country, and Navy was ranked number two. Army’s 23-7 win gave them the national title. In order to get a ticket to this game, fans also had to purchase a war bond, and $58,637,000 was raised.
Both teams were ranked one and two the next year as well, and the 1945 game was labeled the “game of the century” before it was even played. Army won again-cementing their third national title. Playing in that game were two of Army’s Heisman Trophy winners: Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis.
Heisman Trophy Winners and Other Famous Players
Five players from Army and Navy have won the Heisman Trophy for the most outstanding collegiate football player of the year:
Doc Blanchard, Army, Fullback, 1945
Glenn Davis, Army, Halfback, 1946
Pete Dawkins, Army, Halfback, 1958
Joe Bellino, Navy, Halfback, 1960
Roger Staubach, Navy, Quarterback, 1963
Army boasts 24 players and 4 coaches in the College Football Hall of Fame.
Navy has 19 players and 3 coaches in the College Football Hall of Fame.
But only one player from either academy has gone on to the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Roger Staubach of Navy.
Thomas J. Hamilton, Navy class of 1927. Hamilton was a halfback on the 1926 national championship team. After serving on the USS Enterprise in World War II, he went on to be head coach and athletic director at both the Naval Academy and the University of Pittsburgh.
Doc Blanchard, Army class of 1947. During his three years playing for Army, his team’s record was 27-0-1, with the one tie a famous 0-0 duel with Notre Dame. Notre Dame coach Ed McKeever was so impressed with Blanchard after Army’s 59-0 win in 1944 that he said, “I’ve just seen Superman in the flesh. He wears number 35 and goes by the name of Blanchard.” Blanchard and his teammate Glenn Davis were a devastating pair of rushers, with Blanchard known as “Mr. Inside” to Davis’s “Mr. Outside.” They appeared together on the cover of Time magazine in 1945. That year, Blanchard won the Heisman Trophy, the Maxwell Award, and the James E. Sullivan Award. He was the first junior ever to win the Heisman. Blanchard was third overall in the 1946 NFL draft, but chose a military career instead. He became a fighter pilot with the air force and served in the Vietnam War. He retired from service in 1971 as a colonel.
Glenn Davis, Army class of 1947. This halfback was known as “Mr. Outside” and won the Maxwell Award in 1944 and the Heisman in 1946. In 1944, Davis led the nation with 120 points scored and 59 touchdowns. He averaged 8.3 yards per carry throughout his career, and during the 1945 season he averaged an amazing 11.5 yards per carry-both are records that still stand today. After serving in the military, Davis played for the Los Angeles Rams, but a knee injury ended his football career.
Pete Dawkins, West Point class of 1959. Dawkins won the Heisman Trophy and the Maxwell Award in 1958. He is the only cadet in history to simultaneously be a brigade commander, president of his class, captain of the football team, and a “star man”-in the top five percent of his class academically. Dawkins went on to be a Rhodes scholar, earning a degree from Oxford, and later earned a PhD from Princeton. Pete Dawkins served as a paratrooper and received two bronze stars during the Vietnam War. He ended his twenty-four-year military career as a brigadier general.
Joe Bellino, Navy class of 1961. Bellino won the Heisman Trophy in 1960. After serving in the military, he went on to play three seasons as a kick returner for the Boston Patriots. He has the somewhat dubious distinction of being the lowest-drafted Heisman winner in the history of the NFL.
Roger Staubach, Navy class of 1965. Staubach was hailed by Coach Wayne Hardin as “the best quarterback Navy ever had.” He won both the Heisman Trophy and the Maxwell Award in 1963, and led his team to victory in two Army-Navy games. After completing his military commitment and serving in the Vietnam War, Staubach joined the Dallas Cowboys as a twenty-seven-year-old rookie, and went on to a Hall of Fame career. He played in four Super Bowls, won two, and was MVP of Super Bowl VI. That made him the first of only four players to win both the Heisman Trophy and a Super Bowl MVP.
Phil McConkey, Navy class of 1979. After serving his military commitment, McConkey signed with the New York Giants as a twenty-seven-year-old rookie. He was a wide receiver and kickoff and punt returner, and he played a key role in the Giants’ Super Bowl XXI win in January 1987.
Napoleon McCallum, Navy class of 1985. McCallum was a star tailback and kick returner. He played for the Los Angeles Raiders while also serving in the Navy in 1986. He then left to complete his military service. He rejoined the team in 1990 and played until 1994, when a knee injury ended his football career.
Games Not Played
After the first Army-Navy matchup in 1890, there have been only ten years when the game was not played.
The game was suspended for five years from 1894 to 1898 by President Cleveland due to excessive violence and injury.
In 1909, Army canceled their football season after Cadet Eugene Byrne was killed during the Army-Harvard game.
The games in 1917 and 1918 were suspended for World War I.
The 1928 and 1929 games were canceled because of a dispute over player eligibility.
Where and When
The Army-Navy game was traditionally played on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but the date has been pushed back so that it will be both the last game on Army’s and Navy’s schedule and the last game of the regular college football season. It is now played on the second Saturday in December.
The game has been played most often (82 times!) in Philadelphia-neutral territory, a historic city, and about halfway between the academies.
Only six games have been played at the academies themselves. The first four games alternated between West Point and Annapolis. And then in 1942 and 1943, the games were played on campus to cut down on travel costs during wartime. Travel was so severely restricted that the Corps of Cadets was not allowed to attend the 1942 game at Annapolis, and half of the Brigade of Midshipmen were ordered to sit on the Army side of the field and cheer for West Point. Navy won the game 14-0.
In 1905, Woodrow Wilson, then the president of Princeton University, successfully lobbied for the game to be played in Princeton, New Jersey.
Eleven games have been played in New York City-at the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium.
Four games have been played in Baltimore.
In 1926, the game moved to Chicago for the dedication of Soldier Field.
Four games have been played at Giants Stadium, in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
In 1983, the city of Pasadena, California, paid the travel expenses for both the teams and the students of both schools so it could host the Army-Navy game at the Rose Bowl Stadium. This is the only game in this epic rivalry to have been played west of the Mississippi River.
The 2010 game will be played in Philadelphia, and the 2011 game is slated to take place in Landover, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C.
Presidents at the Army-Navy Game
Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to attend the game, which he did in 1901. He began the tradition of changing sides at halftime. Roosevelt also attended in 1902, and in 1905 he is said to have walked the sidelines, cheering on the teams.
Woodrow Wilson attended the game in 1913 at New York’s Polo Grounds.
Calvin Coolidge attended the game in 1922 as vice president and then in 1926 as president.
Harry Truman attended the “game of the century” in 1945. And he returned in 1946, 1948, and 1950.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was the only future president ever to participate in the rivalry, starting at halfback and linebacker for Army in their 1912 loss. He attended the game once during his eight-year presidency.
Having served in the navy during World War II, President John F. Kennedy took great interest in the game, attending in 1961 and 1962. He started the tradition of performing the pregame coin toss. Kennedy took particular interest in the 1963 team, led by quarterback Roger Staubach, and he even visited Navy’s preseason training camp to offer support. That year, Staubach won the Heisman Trophy and the team went 8-1 and was number two in the nation. Then eight days before the Army-Navy game was scheduled, President Kennedy was assassinated, and the game was canceled. But First Lady Jackie Kennedy felt that playing the game would be a fitting tribute, so the game was rescheduled at Municipal Stadium in Philadelphia a week later. The stadium was renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium in 1964.
After Kennedy’s death, security concerns prevented many of his successors from attending the game. Between 1963 and 1995, only Gerald Ford attended-in 1974 to celebrate the 75th playing of the Army-Navy game.
Bill Clinton went to the game in a driving rainstorm in 1996-the first president to attend in twenty-two years.
George W. Bush attended the game three times (in 2001, 2004, and 2008), performing the coin toss and crossing midfield at halftime. In 2004, he also began a tradition of visiting the teams in their locker rooms before the game.
The only nonpresident ever granted access to both the Army and Navy locker rooms before, during, and after an Army-Navy game: John Feinstein, in 1995, while he was researching A Civil War.
Fun Facts and Firsts
In the 1893 game, Navy midshipman Joseph Mason Reeves wore what many regard as the first football helmet. He had been told that another kick to the head could result in “instant insanity” or even death, so he had a shoemaker fashion a helmet of leather. The NCAA did not require players to wear helmets until 1939.
“Anchors Aweigh,” the Navy fight song, made its debut in the 1906 Army-Navy game. Navy won for the first time in five years.
The 1915 game at the Polo Grounds in New York was the first game in which players wore numbers on their uniforms.
Instant replay was used for the first time on any telecast during the Army-Navy game, in 1963.
In 1991 and again in 2000, Navy had only one win in the season-against Army.
Superlative Stats
Most touchdown passes in an Army-Navy game: 3, by George Welsh, Navy, in 1954.
Most receptions: 10, by Mike Clark, Navy, 1967.
Most receiving yards in one game: 128 yards, by Ryan Read, Navy, 1998.
Most interceptions: 4, by Mark Schickner, Navy, 1970.
Highest punting average: 57.6 yards per punt, by Joe Sartiano, Army, 1981.
Longest punt: 79 yards, by Joe Sartiano, Army, 1981.
Longest punt return: 81 yards, by Paul Johnson, Army, 1933.
Most kicking points: 15, by Steve Fehr, Navy, 1980.
Longest kickoff return (tie): 98 yards, by Charles Daly, Army, 1981, and by Reggie Campbell, Navy, 2007.
Longest rush from scrimmage: 92 yards, by Rip Rowan, Army, 1947.
Longest pass: 69 yards, by Brian Broadwater to Ryan Read, Navy, 1998.
Longest field goal: 52 yards, by Kurt Heiss, Army, 1994 (to win the game).
Longest interception return: 101 yards, by John Raster, Navy, 1951.
Sources for Further Reading
armynavygame.com/the-rivalry/timeline
phillylovesarmynavy.com/RIVALRY-HISTORY
goarmysports.com
navysports.com
gvsu.edu/hauenstein (Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies)
A Civil War: Army vs. Navy-A Year Inside Football’s Purest Rivalry by John Feinstein